ChapterNine
Mark
“Did you hear we have another new guy starting next week?” Reid asked as he dropped a cup of coffee off at my desk.
“Yeah, DB mentioned it last night. I think there’s a possibility some of this week’s new guys are going to move to Palmerstown, but I don’t know for sure.”
I opened the file that was sitting on my desk and read through some results I’d been waiting for on a case and switched off to what was going on around me. There was just so much going on in my life that if I didn’t tune the world out, I’d miss something and mess up a case. People deserved better than that from me.
Another file hitting my desk had me lifting my head to see DB grinning widely.
“Heard you moved in with your wife last night. What’s it like living with the Townsends when they’re picturing stuffing your body and using it as a Halloween decoration?”
“I think we’re past that point. Now, they just want to pull my nails and toenails out and dip my fingers and toes in paint stripper.”
DB looked even more amused. “Ah, so progress then?”
“Looks like it.”
He pointed at the file he’d just dropped off. “Got some of the test results back on your house. Obviously we can’t involve you in the case while it’s ongoing, but I’ll keep you updated as much as possible. So far, most of the luminescent fluids haven’t reacted to Luminol, and the cadaver dog didn’t pick up on anything.”
“Wait,” Reid shouted, “cadaver dog? Since when is there a cadaver dog? You can’t just throw that out there and not expect us to get excited about it.”
Sitting his ass down on the corner of my desk, DB explained, “We now share one between ourselves and Palmerstown, but we’ll be lending her to a couple of others as well. She arrived on Friday and is still undergoing training with her handler, so last night was a test to make sure he can control her as required.”
“Why didn’t we get it? I’d have loved to have been the cadaver dog dude.”
“Because they have the crime scene techs, and it makes sense to keep them all together.” Seeing how disappointed Reid was, DB sighed. “Okay then, tell you what, once she’s settled, I’ll ask Judd if you can go and do some training with them to see her in action. How does that sound?”
“Like I got a tenth-rate prize when I came in second.”
I swung my chair around to see him. “What does that even mean?”
“Like when you go to a fair and see what great prizes you get for first and second place, but when it comes to them giving it to you, you get one that would have been better suited for tenth place.”
Fair enough.
Shaking his head, DB turned back to me. “Police closest to Mrs. Mitchell’s retirement place are going to visit her today and ask some questions. If necessary, we’ll be allowed to ask her some of our own, or even go there to do it.
“Depending on what tests they run, we should start getting the results back in the next week, and if everything’s okay, then you can get that cleaning crew in to sanitize the place.”
“Thanks, DB. Layla found out I’d bought her the dream house because of other people’s bodily fluids, so it wasn’t the way I’d planned.”
“Obviously,” he pointed out dryly. “Nothing says romance like orgy stains in her dream house.”
“Yeah, so hopefully now that she knows, she can start planning how she wants it to look.”
He tilted his head to the side and said carefully, “And y’all are at that point where you can make choices like that?”
“Fuck, no,” I snorted. “But I’m hoping that if she thinks about how it should look, it’ll help us move the conversation around so we can talk about us. There’s just so much that isn’t being said and so much miscommunication every time we try.”
“Ah, you’re hoping it’ll be an icebreaker.”
“Exactly.”
“Plus,” Reid added, “you can spend time together picking stuff for the house. There’s paint, paint brushes, rollers, curtains, rugs, furniture, and shit for the kitchen. You’re definitely going to want new tiles and fittings in the bathrooms—”
I zoned out on what he was saying because, although I knew all of this, hearing someone else list it made it seem impossible to achieve.